Lynne Potts
Getting to the Bottom of Buff
The man handed me a brown paper bag
and I wondered how many brown paper bags
I’d used in my life of grocery stores
liquor stores, stationary stores, drug stores
their smooth texture, questionable color:
beige—the shade of a two-piece suit
worn to boring jobs to this day or taupe—
perfect for suede shoes with curved French
heels once purchased in Paris
while hitchhiking decades ago
sand—silent in Oman’s desert
where winds almost threw me to the ground
but kept blowing and reminding me
of camels who tolerate endless treks—
and buff—which no one knows what it is.
I think a lot about buff, just out there
hanging in stillness, seeming
to have meaning but there’s no meaning in buff.
Oh, you can find it on color charts
and sometimes people say in the buff
but really, they’re just people—
the strange species that existed epochs ago
as chordates, now with little beads of plastic
they eat in fish that makes them sick.
Slicing
Deep bloom of late afternoon
bluebells shaking the wind
where does it come from
blue wind—
as we set out on a path
with basket
for a wicker picnic
If you drew a pie chart of your life
how big would it be
a slice for idling
a slice for equivocating
a slice for sorrow
mystified by blue wind
coming even when
it’s only a small
slice of the possible.
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